


Settling In

by Missy



Category: Mermaids (1990)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Post-Canon, Yuletide Madness 2015, Yuletide Treat, settling down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four ways the Flax girls manage to make Eastport their forever home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celaenos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/gifts).



They don’t really fight for a good solid month. Kate is kind of amazed by the change in the household; the absence of the weird push-pull between Charlotte and their mother. Kate’s happy – the family is finally, finally starting to come together and act like family ought to.

And all it took was her nearly drowning in an ice-cold river.

(Of course then Kate eventually finds out that Charlotte’s still writing to Joe and when _Rachel_ finds out she goes nuclear. But it’s nicely peaceful in the meantime).

*** 

And Lou – Lou keeps getting closer to the family. He keeps bringing dinners and taking their mother out and being interested in Kate’s swimming and Charlotte’s passions (he even buys the girl a whole volume of Greek mythology over Rachel’s objections). One Saturday evening her mother bursts into the kitchen with huge bags of groceries and start pitching pots and pans out of the cupboard and noisily onto the stove. They made quite a clatter, the muffled but still somehow violent sound reminding Kate that they hadn’t been touched since they’d moved in. Come to think of it she’d hauled those things through a hundred moves without using them.

“Lou’s coming to Saturday dinner. How do I do Saturday dinner? What goes into it? Kate, go find my cookbook – don’t laugh, I have one! It’s under the pile of Harold Robbins books by my nightstand. Charlotte? CHARLOTTE, get your nose out of that book and help me peel some potatoes.”

Kate finds the (very dusty, very disused) book between The Carpetbaggers and a moth-eared copy of The Lonely Lady. By the time she gets back her family’s in mid-argument.

“…I’m allergic to potatoes,” insists Charlotte.

“You’re allergic to rutabagas!” Rachel finds the radio and turned it on. “How long does a chicken need to cook before it’s _cooked?_ ” She starts opening cans and dumping them into pots. “God, I need a cigarette.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea while the gas is on,” says Charlotte.

“I have the book,” Kate says, hopping onto a chair to better see the action happening on the counter. She flips through the pages, sending up clouds of white powder. “It says you need to boil these for twenty minutes and poke them with a fork to be sure they’re done.”

“Twenty minutes? Do I look like a cavewoman?” she pokes the bag of frozen spinach she picked up as a backup vegetable. “Let’s start on the chicken. Kate, roll up your sleeves; I’ll egg, you batter, Charlotte fries.”

“Do I have a choice?” Charlotte mutters, setting aside her book.

“Not if you want to eat,” says Rachel.

The lumpy, misbegotten pile of food is something of a greasy disaster, but it’s edible. Lou praises the flavor to high heaven, ignoring the mushy turnips (cooked when Rachel turned the potatoes into a black pile of charcoal-colored ash), the dry rice, and the burnt fried chicken. Says it has a lot of flavor. Says it reminds him of how they used to do it back in the old days. 

Rachel smiles at the praise. Charlotte rolls her eyes. Kate just grins and giggles, happily.

It’s another step forward, another step toward being a family.

*** 

“Girls, we’re getting a dog.”

Charlotte’s in the middle of reading yet another article about the Beatles (she’d moved, quite happily, out of the mythology phase when she’d tripped head over heels in love with George Harrison’s puppydog eyes.). “Why? It would cost less to get Kate a license.”

“Or we could shave Charlotte,” Kate throws in.

“I have no idea where you girls get your attitude.” Rachel says, hands on her hips, pro-ject-ing. “I mean a REAL dog!”

“This is big,” Charlotte says. “You told me we couldn’t get a goldfish.

“That was several houses and six boyfriends ago,” Rachel says. “Lou and I were at the pet store yesterday and they have the cutest cocker spaniel. What do you girls think?”

“High-strung, frantic, sassy – sounds like it’d fit right in. But it’s a lot of responsibility. Sure you’re making the right choice, Mom?” Charlotte asks.

“For once? Yep.”

(The dog, named Prince George, lives a very long life and becomes Kate’s bosom companion as she tries to cope with her sister’s disappearance into the arms of academia.)

*** 

Rachel buys the house.

She has no idea HOW Rachel buys the house, but she does. Maybe Lou floats her a loan, or maybe her job’s paying her under the table (thousands of dollars? Kate doesn’t know). But they have a house now – a real house – a place to call home. 

And Kate has her room with the star lights, the porch, the sound of the ocean (muffled, but there) and the knowledge that there’s a bulwark she can rest her fingers on. 

When she pulls her own roots up to run away, she’ll always have a place to fly back to.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my all-time favorite comfort films; I hope you enjoyed my little take on what the Flax girls would do to settle in (though never settle down) after deciding to stay in Eastport. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
